Torpedo Boat Destroyers

[Brian James]

French Torpedo Boat Destroyers pictured at Calais on July 26th 1910.

[Brian James]

Torpedo Boat FS Audacieux pictured on completion at Toulon in 1889.

[Brian James]

Torpedo Boat FS Amiral Senes pictured at Rouen and Marseille in 1921... She was a 1916 Type Large Torpedo Boat (Großes Torpedoboot) of the Imperial German Navy during World War I. Built as SMS S113 she was the first ship of her class to be laid down, but the second and final ship of her class to be launched.Built by the Schichau-Werke Yards in Elbing Germany, she was launched in January 1918. The 'S' in S113 refers to the Shipyard at which she was constructed.
S113 never saw service during World War I as she was commissioned near the end of hostilities. She was transferred to the French Navy as War Reparations on June 1st 1920 and renamed Amiral Sénès.She served in the French Navy until 1936 when she was used for gunnery practice and sunk on July 19th1938.

[designeraccd]

Here she is as German S 113, a HUGE DD by WW1 standards! I built a model of her decades ago in the JFS !:1536 scale.

Here is info about these large DDs:

Destroyers S113 class (1918)

"TBD V116
V116 design (wikipedia)

This class of large ocean destroyers will be one of the last built before the end of the war. With 12 units planned, 3 from Blohm & Voss and three from Vulcan, two were actually completed and entered service in 1918, one of the S113 class and one of the V116 class.

In many ways, these were very modern units, out of the G96 scheme, called “mobilization” class. These ships with their large dimensions and front deck more in line with the British standards, catching up with the new generation of destroyer design in 1917 and breaking with the torpedo-boat types of the past.

They caused a stir in the Admiralty as soon as the British secret services got wind of these.

It was decided to build in 1917 a series of large “Wing drivers” destroyers to counter them. These new German units were equipped with guns and torpedo tubes of larger caliber (150 and 600 mm) without equivalent in the Royal Navy, not to mention their speed. In the end, only the S113 and V116 were completed before the armistice.

The S113 which was conducting its trials the last days of the war, was immediately claimed by France as war damage, being used under the name Admiral Sénès until 1935. The V116 was offered to Italy and became the Premuda, retired from service in 1937.

Displacement and dimensions: 2060t, 2415t PC; 106 x 10.2 x 3.4 m
Propulsion: 2 screws, 2 Schichau turbines, 2 standard boilers, 45,000 cv. and 36 knots max.
Crew: 176
Armament: Four 152 mm guns, four 500 mm TT (2×2, 2×2), 40 mines."
DFO

[designeraccd]

A bit more from the web:


"Torpedoboot S113 of the Großes Torpedoboot 1916 Class



The Großes Torpedoboot 1916 was a radical change in design philosophy for German torpedoboats. They were the most powerful torpedoboats build by the German Navy at their time. In other navies, these ships would be called "destroyers", but the German Navy kept the traditional torpedo boat classification.

Since the existing German torpedo boats were too lightly armed to fight British torpedo boats or torpedo boat destroyers, the main focus on this new class was a much better artillery which lead to a significant enlarged ships. With over 2400 ts, they were about twice as big as the largest torpedo boat class build so far.

Armed with four 15 cm guns and the new 60 cm torpedoes, they were a serious threat to British destroyers, but because of the progress of the war, only two of the 12 boats laid down were ever completed. Those two boats had to be delivered to France and Italy after the war and were used in active service until the mid or late 1930s and proved that these ships had an excellent design."

A very interesting design that was a major jump in the German DD fleet of WW 1. Apparently this design was properly balanced to handle the 5.9" guns, unlike the WW 2 units that carried new 5.9s....... DFO